Business and Trade
Andrew Griffith Excerpts(2 days, 17 hours ago)
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Chris Bryant
Of course there are specific things about the Scottish economy that we want to drive forward. For instance, 54% of Scottish goods exports go into the European Union.
Andrew Griffith
The Government do not create jobs; business does. With unemployment rising, this is the last chance to ask the Secretary of State a question ahead of the start of April when a tsunami of business rate rises will hit. Shops and restaurants will see a 50% increase on average and the business rates of hotels will double. He and I both represent wonderful Sussex constituencies full of hospitality, high street and tourism businesses, but young people need those jobs. For their sake and for others, will he finally postpone his business rate rise?
Peter Kyle
I enjoy these exchanges with the shadow Secretary of State. I note that Reform’s self-styled shadow Secretary of State—or, as I call him, the shadowy Secretary of State—is not in his place, despite being just next door in the Tea Room a few minutes ago. I think that speaks volumes.
The shadow Secretary of State knows that the private sector has created 380,000 jobs under this Government. We will continue to grow the economy and the number of people in work, and make sure that people benefit from all the rights we are delivering, which are pro-business and pro-worker. He spent 14 years letting down Britain. Now he has spent 18 months talking it down.
[Official Report, 12 March 2026; Vol. 782, c. 489-490.]
Written correction submitted by the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, the right hon. Member for Hove and Portslade (Peter Kyle):
Single Status of Worker
Andrew Griffith Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders) on securing this important debate. I regret that he himself was a victim of unemployment, cut down in his prime by a capricious boss, although I have greatly enjoyed working with the current Minister, the hon. Member for Halifax (Kate Dearden), to try to do what we all seek to do: improve the employment lot of our fellow citizens.
Single worker status is not a minor legal tidy-up; it would be a fundamental restructuring of the labour market—the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough mentioned that in his opening remarks. For that reason, the Conservatives believe that we should proceed cautiously. We cannot have it both ways. This Government cannot deliver a once-in-a-generation change to workers’ rights—330 pages of new legislation that has caused a degree of indigestion in the employment market as it passes through it like an egg through a snake—and then immediately come back and say that we need to unleash even more uncertainty. The law that we pass most often in this House is the law of unintended consequences. Although we are well-meaning, it behoves us all to have regard to the ever-increasing proportion of our young people who are unemployed and unable to find work, in part no doubt due to the additional regulatory burden.
Although the Conservative party does not, of course, oppose a consultation on this subject—if that was a commitment given by the Government it is in the interests of good faith and democracy that they proceed to have such a consultation—we would nevertheless be extremely cautious about rushing too quickly to legislate. In the interests of time and productivity, I will leave my remarks there.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Griffith Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
The Government do not create jobs; business does. With unemployment rising, this is the last chance to ask the Secretary of State a question ahead of the start of April when a tsunami of business rate rises will hit. Shops and restaurants will see a 50% increase on average and the business rates of hotels will double. He and I both represent wonderful Sussex constituencies full of hospitality, high street and tourism businesses, but young people need those jobs. For their sake and for others, will he finally postpone his business rate rise?
Peter Kyle
I enjoy these exchanges with the shadow Secretary of State. I note that Reform’s self-styled shadow Secretary of State—or, as I call him, the shadowy Secretary of State—is not in his place, despite being just next door in the Tea Room a few minutes ago. I think that speaks volumes.
The shadow Secretary of State knows that the private sector has created 380,000 jobs under this Government. We will continue to grow the economy and the number of people in work, and make sure that people benefit from all the rights we are delivering, which are pro-business and pro-worker. He spent 14 years letting down Britain. Now he has spent 18 months talking it down.
Andrew Griffith
The Secretary of State forgets that I have not even been here for 14 years. Some days it feels like that, but I can assure him that it is not the case. There was no answer to that question, so let me try another. Does he agree that there is something pretty badly wrong with employment law in this country when Peter Mandelson, the friend of a convicted paedophile and leaker of classified Government documents, walks away with a £75,000 pay-off? The permanent secretary thinks that is good value for money. Will the Secretary of State review Labour’s policy of uncapping employment tribunal payouts for the highest earners?
Peter Kyle
As is so often the case when we have these exchanges, the shadow Secretary of State spends a lot of his time slagging off his own record in office. The Conservatives had 14 years to reform tribunal rights—they did not even touch it. They had 14 years to update workers’ rights and employment status in this country—they did not do it. The economy moved forward; they failed to move forward.
Turning to the issue of Peter Mandelson, I start by recognising that there are victims at the heart of this debate and the issues surrounding it. Those victims are in my mind today as I answer this question, and they have been all the way through. We will make sure that those victims get the justice they deserve. When it comes to the issues surrounding Peter Mandelson, there are multiple inquiries under way. Thames Valley police is leading on a criminal inquiry, and I will leave it at that.
Draft National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2026
Andrew Griffith Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer.
I wish the Minister all the very best; she has already demonstrated that she is an effective performer on behalf of her constituents. In your time, Mr Stringer, you will have seen many Ministers pushed out to defend the indefensible, but very rarely are they caught in the action of passing a statutory instrument while, in real time, the Treasury is peddling and briefing stories of a U-turn—before the ink is even dry, before the vote has been taken and before the regulations have been agreed to.
Why is that? I think colleagues across the House, who want the best for our country and for young people, recognise that there is a growing crisis of young people being unable to access the work market. The latest figures show that 957,000 young people are not in education, employment or training. Although the Government inherited that number, they are actually making it worse—and that is before the impact of the regulations and the unemployment Bill, with which the Minister is deeply acquainted.
If we look at the overall level of young people who wish to find work—those who are formally looking for work—we see that the figure for youth unemployment is 16.1% for young people between the ages of 16 and 24, the very young people in respect of whom the above-inflation rate changes make up the largest part of the regulations before us. Why would any of us in this Committee be passive or neutral about passing measures that every economist and business group that has looked at them believes are likely to discourage firms from taking a chance on those young people?
I often find myself in common cause with the Federation of Small Businesses. It does wonderful work and represents the smallest and most fragile businesses across all our constituencies, which we all want to see succeed on our high streets and grow. They are where growth comes from. The same is true of the British Chambers of Commerce, which also has concerns about the approach the Government are taking to the wage rates for 16 to 20-year-olds—people getting their very first chance at work.
It is far less often that I find myself in common cause with the Tony Blair Institute or the Resolution Foundation, which have both, in the last 48 hours alone, reiterated their concern about the changes that the Minister advocates we vote for and pass today. This is not some Tufton Street think-tank expressing concern but the Resolution Foundation: the finishing school for aspirant young Labour Ministers—sadly, some of the talent that sits elsewhere on the Labour Benches is overlooked—and the ideological heart of the modern Labour party. The Resolution Foundation has said that this change is the wrong direction to go in and called for a moratorium.
I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members would not dream of taking out their phones under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, but if they did so right now and looked at the Financial Times, they would see that Treasury sources are briefing that the Department will be scaling this measure back. That would be part of what I think is U-turn No. 16, although it is very hard to tell—being a bear of little brain, I cannot always keep up with the number of U-turns the Government have made.
My final words come from the author of this strategy herself: the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), who was my interlocutor throughout the passage of the 300-page, 1970s, red tape, job-destroying unemployment Bill. Recently, albeit after she had left Government and perhaps moved beyond the influence of those on the Treasury Bench, she spoke about the overall challenge of employment for our wider economy—the coastal, seasonal and hospitality businesses on the frontline, where so many young people, whom we are all here to represent in a non-partisan fashion, had their very first shot at a job, as I did myself. The right hon. Lady said:
“I think we’ve got to recognise, it’s not even a double whammy, it’s not even a triple whammy. I talk about the challenges on business rates, the challenges on VAT, the challenges of the minimum wage going up and the living wage going up”.
Will the Minister update us on the Chancellor’s latest thinking on this measure? What does she think about the difficult challenge for young people having their first shot at life and opportunity?
UK-India Free Trade Agreement
Andrew Griffith Excerpts(3 months ago)
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Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
I am delighted to see not just the excellent Minister for Trade, but the Secretary of State. [Interruption.] I did; just bank the win. I read that the Secretary of State is being earmarked as a caretaker Prime Minister, so we are pleased that he has the time to spend with us—I think we have 10 minutes before Labour colleagues have to run upstairs.
Richard Cobden said:
“I believe that Free Trade will do more to civilise the world than all the treaties of peace that have ever been signed.”
He was the former Member of Parliament for Stockport, but he was a resident in my own West Sussex constituency, near Midhurst. His advocacy of free trade, including in this House, was always about its benefits for ordinary people: cheaper food, higher wages and fewer incentives for people to wage destructive wars that had a huge impact on ordinary people.
We Conservatives agree. Those on the Conservative Benches will always be the party of free trade, where it benefits our country. That is why it was a Conservative Government who signed new landmark trade agreements with the EU, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, and negotiated the entry of the UK to the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership. It is why it was the Conservative Government who laid the foundations for this free trade agreement with India. And let us be absolutely clear: this agreement is a tangible benefit of the decision the British people made in 2016 to leave the political institution of Europe; the fruit of the independent trade policy we regained, allowing the United Kingdom to negotiate once again as a sovereign state, just like Canada, Australia and Switzerland —Britain first, not Britain hoping against experience that its interests would float to the top of a soup of 27 other conflicting flavours.
Since July 2024, the Indian economy has grown by 11%. For context, the European Union has grown by 1.9% in the same period. Under this Government, the British economy has grown by just 1.6%. Exports matter, so this deal has the potential to be a key part of a growth plan for our economy. However, as any business leader will tell us, the devil is not just in the detail of such deals, but in what is not in them. I welcome the excellent report by the Business and Trade Committee, which is very thorough and an important part of the scrutiny process of this House.
We are a nation for which services represent nearly half of our global exports. I am afraid it appears that the Government have accepted a deal that is disappointingly thin on the sectors where Britain leads the world. The inclusion of services in this deal was the No. 1 priority of the previous Government’s negotiations. Instead, this deal settles for locking in existing levels of liberalisation—all good—rather than breaking new ground on services. There is an absence of provisions for mobility to allow our service industries to really integrate in India, restricting our consultants, engineers and architects from practising on the ground.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend reflect on the view, which I hear a good deal in a constituency, which contains very many entrepreneurs both of Indian heritage and with connections to business in India, that this deal shows a Government who are not listening to the voice of business that has that level of experience, because they are missing out, as he is describing, on so many of the opportunities that those existing business links contain.
Andrew Griffith
Well, I was going to be generous to the Government and say something slightly positive. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that Governments of all flavours could do an infinitely better job of listening to businesses. They are the people at the frontline in the real world. His constituents have very deep links to the economy of India and it represents a real opportunity. We support the deal, but the only tone today is one of slight regret about the missed opportunities. Of course, it is easy for a Government to get a deal if they take the deal being offered, rather than negotiating and seeking to improve that deal. Therein is some of the difference between the approach of our Government and—[Interruption.] Well, we did not get it because we were not willing to take the deal that was on the table. We were holding out and negotiating for a better deal.
Let me give the Minister an example of that—a quite surprising example, in many ways—which is the complete omission of a legal services sector deal from this agreement. The Law Society called that
“a missed opportunity for a significant breakthrough”.
The chair of the Bar Council said it was
“a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”
missed. How ironic that a Government of lawyers, led by lawyers and stuffed full of lawyers, could not get even that aspect of the agreement across the line. The deal places a 36-month target—I hope it is a target, not an aspiration or ambition—for the conclusion of a mutual recognition of a professional qualifications agreement. That would be a great opportunity. Our services sector would welcome that, but I hope the Minister will agree with me that not to achieve that now would be to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It would be a humiliation for this Government and I hope he will address, when he winds-up, the precise plans to secure that agreement.
In a similar vein, the bilateral investment treaty that was planned to be agreed at the same time—it was in the original objectives for our deal—has also not been delivered. This is the deal that was offered, rather than the deal that could have been negotiated and improved. That leaves British investors exposed to sudden policy changes, unfair treatment and expropriation. I could, of course, be talking about the policies of this Government, but in this case I am talking about the Indian Government and the jeopardy for some significant British investors. Again, this is another missed opportunity—a deal that we support but that could have been better. I understand that the chief negotiator on the deal has confirmed that, sadly, there are no plans to return to the table to get an investment treaty across the line, but I would be very happy to stand corrected on that. Perhaps that point could be addressed in the Minister’s winding-up speech.
As we heard from the Minister, on day one the deal will grant Indian exporters of such wonders as textiles, gems and engineering goods immediate duty-free access to the British market. This is a welcome deflationary measure. It will come as good news for households as the price of goods in their weekly shops fall. Leather shoes, clothes, home furnishings and more will be cheaper under this deal. However, it is disappointing that this welcome reduction in tariffs is very far from symmetrical. Indian exporters benefit immediately, while British exporters sit in the waiting room. Scottish whisky producers, whom we have heard about, manufacturers of electric vehicles, the medical consumables industry and chemical producers will have to wait for between five and 10 years before tariffs are fully reduced.
Graham Leadbitter (Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey) (SNP)
The hon. Gentleman briefly mentions whisky. The deal is broadly welcomed by the Scottish whisky sector and I have welcomed it myself as an MP for a constituency with 49 distilleries—I am trying to visit them all. He talks about asymmetry in the deal, but is there not asymmetry in Labour Government policy, between the export deal, where they are trying to get the best possible deal for whisky, while whisky is still paying the highest levels of duty for alcohol in the UK? That is putting undue pressure on a sector that is already under pressure.
Andrew Griffith
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I do not want to simply agree with him for the sake of it: it is not easy for Chancellors of whatever flavour to balance the books, but where we have wonderful industries such as all our drinks and spirits industries, including, if I may say so, our English wine industry, the Government must do everything they can to promote them—
Andrew Griffith
And Welsh, and from other parts of this wonderful kingdom.
This Government, as the previous Government, have by and large got the importance of the wonderful Scottish whisky industry, but it is important to do anything that can be done to help. Of course, the way that one reduces taxes over time is by making tough decisions on Government spending, which would be one of the key things the Conservatives would do in order to be able to lower those taxes.
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), who is no longer in his place, made an important point about the protection of ceramics and related industries, such as our brick and energy-intensive chemicals industries, which are all important. A trade deal, however wonderful it may or may not be, will do nothing to help the ruinously high energy costs faced by the ceramics, brick and chemicals industries, along with so many others. This debate is not about that issue and it is not the responsibility of the Minister, but it is nevertheless an important factor; if we are going to lower barriers and frictions so that we can boost trade, increase the prosperity of our citizens and grow our economy, that absolutely must involve the full stack, including energy and what one does about employment law and regulation.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I hope I am not stretching the boundaries of the debate excessively, but I would be interested to know whether the agreement has any implications for defence exports to India and, if it does, what safeguards would be in place, given the unhealthily close relationship between India and Russia.
Andrew Griffith
The document produced by the Select Committee lays out the impact for defence, modest as I believe it is. I will leave it to those on the Government Front Bench to answer my right hon. Friend’s important question about security—
Chris Bryant
I wonder if I could talk through the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) to the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis): our export control system for any exports from the UK into any other country in the world bears in mind diversion from one country to another. That is a very important part of what we look at. The FTA does not affect that process at all.
Andrew Griffith
I hope that my right hon. Friend is reassured to a degree by the Minister’s response. I will move on now—you will be pleased to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that my speech is not as comprehensive as the work of the Select Committee.
I would be grateful if the Government could clarify a few points about the position on food and agricultural products. There are protections for sugar, chicken, eggs and pork, and that has been welcomed by producers. However, there are concerns from the British dairy industry about opening the market, which describes the deal as a one-way street: dairy is excluded from UK exports to India, yet tariffs on Indian dairy coming into the UK are removed.
Chris Bryant
I will try to keep up as we are going along, if that is okay. On dairy, I understand the point the hon. Gentleman is making; it has been made to me before and was also made in Committee. However, I am not aware of any Indian cheese company that has been able to export into the UK, as it would still need a licence. We were very keen to secure arrangements so that we were not abandoning any of our food standards, which obviously have to be met before any export can come here.
Andrew Griffith
I will try to leave the Minister with a short list of questions, rather than going through each and every one as we go.
Notwithstanding what the Minister has just said—perhaps we can revert to this later—there are also concerns about the Government’s hypocrisy in respect of pesticides and animal welfare, particularly with regard to crustaceans. I do not know whether the Minister has quite the same degree of expertise in crustacean welfare and in particular prawn eyestalk ablation, which sounds more trivial here than it would to the prawn whose eyestalks are being ablated. Those concerns are particularly relevant because despite the Government publishing and vaunting their virtue in terms of animal welfare, these poor blinded prawns seem to be victims under this deal. [Interruption.] I would be happy to give way to the Minister on prawn eyestalk ablation, which is an important point; perhaps, on winding up, he could make a more general point on trade deals and how the Government will protect our animal welfare and food safety standards.
Andrew Griffith
I am in no way qualified to answer that. However, it is the Government’s position about crustacean welfare, and they should speak to it. Just before Christmas, they published a significant proposal to change the law on that. As ever in trade, this is not a point about the underlying fundamentals, on which the Minister will be advised by Government scientists and others—I did part of his job as Minister for Exports; it is a point about the symmetry and balance of the issue.
David Simmonds
My hon. Friend will recall that during the debates about post-Brexit trade agreements, the highest possible standards of animal welfare were raised frequently across the House on a cross-party basis. The matter my hon. Friend is talking about involves swapping prawns and other types of seafood caught in British waters to the highest possible standards with creatures reared using a method that involves pulling off their eyeballs while they are alive in order for them to lay more eggs so that more prawns can be produced more cheaply. I am sure we would all agree that is cruel and would not meet the expectations set out across the House. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a powerful point that illustrates the asymmetry in this deal, which he is quite rightly seeking to criticise?
Andrew Griffith
My hon. Friend puts the point in a better and more informed way than me. It is important, and it is for the Government to set out very clearly how they propose to maintain or create a level playing field on these matters so that producers operating here to British standards are not disadvantaged, while we all get the benefits of trade and prosperity that I spoke of.
Chris Bryant
We are all joking about it, but this is a serious matter. The centre of the point is that whatever the tariffs may do, companies can only sell products in the UK that meet our food standards—precisely the point made by the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds). In order to ensure that is true, companies have to have a licence to sell in the UK. In addition, all Indian aquaculture products are currently subject to intensified controls with 50% consignment checks at the border. This is one of the many areas where we need to ensure that we protect our producers in this country, who are abiding by very high standards. I could apply that to all the different agriculture and foods that we are talking about, as well as to aquaculture.
Andrew Griffith
I thank the Minister for that intervention; I drew some comfort from it, but we will have to see the detail of the exact crustacean protections we end up with.
Finally, there is one glaring area that—even beyond the missing benefits to our important services industry—was a point of difference in the negotiations that we conducted and a reason why, when we were in government, we did not consummate that deal and why the negotiations remained outstanding. The Leader of the Opposition has been very clear about this: when she was leading the negotiations, she refused to sign this deal because of the double contributions convention. The Minister will know precisely what I mean by that.
We still have not seen the detail of that convention, and every Member of the House should be concerned. This is a very limited part of the process of scrutiny of trade deals—the rights of Parliament are perhaps not fully discharged just by the CRaG process. However, we have not even seen what the Minister referred to earlier as the HMRC agreement on this. What it means in substance—I will choose my words very precisely—is that Indian workers who come here to work will not pay a penny in British national insurance contributions, and neither will their employers.
The Government decided that they would open this deal—this two-tier tax system for India—at precisely the same time as hiking their jobs tax on every single British worker. I am happy to be rebutted or corrected, but by my calculations, under this agreement it could be up to £10,000 a year cheaper to hire a software developer on an average British salary from India than to hire someone from Britain for the same role, as employers will not be liable for those national insurance contributions. These are big numbers, and this will mean a big disadvantage to hiring an identical British worker at a time when there are 9 million people of working age not in work and when unemployment is rising—in fact, it has risen every month under this Government.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
Does this not suggest that when a deal was presented to the then Conservative Secretary of State for Business and Trade, she declined to sign it because she judged it not in the British interest? It does rather seem as though this Government have rolled over on this key point, which will allow Indian firms to import Indian workers in preference to British ones.
Andrew Griffith
My hon. Friend makes exactly the right point. The former Secretary of State—the current Leader of the Opposition—has been very clear that that was a deal breaker. It was deal or no deal, and if that had been an absolute red line, we would not have signed this deal. It is not a virtue to take any deal that is offered. As I say, the Conservatives are in favour of trade, and we value our relationship with India, but we would not have crossed that red line.
Iqbal Mohamed
Does the right hon. Member agree that anybody who comes to our country and does not pay into the system through national insurance and taxes should not be allowed to benefit from services that taxpayers fund, like the NHS, education, GPs, dentists and so on? It is a two-tier system if we are treating our care workers and healthcare professionals who come here on official visas differently from imported labour.
Andrew Griffith
I am glad to hear agreement across the House on the desire not to have a two-tier system. We all understand the need to pay our taxes to support our public services, but it will not feel right if two people are sitting cheek by jowl, side by side in the same place of employment—a factory or other work environment—but are contributing at a very different rate to the Exchequer for the public services that we all support.
Andrew Griffith
Let me finish my point, and then there will be plenty of opportunity for interventions. I will not anticipate the Minister’s point, but there are other agreements such as this in place—I want to be full and clear about that.
There are social security agreements where contributions are both paid in and taken out. We have them with the European Union, for example. They are a long-standing feature, and they were under previous Governments. Again, to be very clear and open, we also have a limited number of agreements like this with some selected other countries, including the high-skilled economies of Japan, South Korea and Chile and, to some degree, Canada. But we do not have an agreement like this of any sort with a mostly English-speaking nation of 1.5 billion people, all of whom would potentially be better off availing themselves of this arbitrage—this two-tier system—under this deal.
Astonishingly, this part of the deal was left out of UK Government communications, so not only do we have two-tier substance in terms of the economics of the deal; we also have two-tier communications. The Indian Government boasted about this element as a significant and attractive feature of the deal, but there was not a single mention of it in the UK Government communications. That, in and of itself, should send alarm bells ringing about this two-tier tax deal.
Chris Bryant
I was not going to make the point that the hon. Member went on to make—that his Government signed up to lots of similar arrangements—but I was going to respond to the intervention from the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed). It is important that we make it clear that under the double contributions convention, a detached Indian worker and their employer in the UK would need to pay into the Indian provident fund. On top of that, they will need to pay £3,105 in NHS surcharges, and up to £769 in visa fees. On top of that, the employer would pay an immigration skills charge of £3,000, and £525 to issue a certificate of sponsorship, so I do not think that the numbers add up in the way that the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley was suggesting.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. The shadow Secretary of State has already spoken for longer than the Minister, which must be something of a record. I appreciate that there have been a lot of interventions on the shadow Secretary of State from Government Front Benchers, but perhaps he can draw his remarks to a close. The Minister will have ample time to make his points in the wind-up.
Andrew Griffith
I shall take good heed of those comments, Madam Deputy Speaker.
We support having a sovereign trade policy, and this is an excellent example of where it could have advantages. We are talking about one of the largest economies on the planet, which is growing approximately five times faster than the European Union. However, the deal could have been better. We are passionate about supporting our investors, lawyers, engineers, scientists and the wonderful services industry. We believe that they can compete anywhere in the world, provided that the field is level and the rules are fair, but we did not need to get a “good enough” deal across the line. British businesses needed something with a really good kick in it to get this country growing. Instead of a vindaloo of a deal, the Prime Minister came back with a bag of soggy poppadoms.
Charlie Maynard
The National Bureau of Economic Research, in the United States.
Charlie Maynard
I certainly like the States.
While we are making comparisons with Europe, I note that under the UK’s free trade agreement 92% of our exports to India will enter tariff-free. Under the EU’s deal, 96.6% of its exports can enter India tariff-free. Perhaps there is some logic, after all, to bigger trade blocs having more leverage. I wholeheartedly agree with the comments from the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) about national insurance contributions. I am also deeply concerned about that, as is my party. I also take the Minister’s point about visa fees and everything else, but by the time we add all those together, I think that UK Inc—whether in my constituency of Witney or across the UK—will still be at a major disadvantage. This risks undermining British labour—
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Griffith Excerpts(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
The Minister has just heard from across the House continuing pleas to support the hospitality industry. It is always a good day when the Government U-turn and provide more support for pubs, so we welcome that. However, unless the Minister can explain to us when a pub becomes a gastropub, when a gastropub becomes a restaurant, and when a restaurant with rooms becomes a hotel and descends down that wormhole, will she make representations to the Chancellor to extend the same measures for pubs that she U-turned on this week across the whole retail, hospitality and leisure sector? The truth of the matter is that 90% of that sector will not benefit from this week’s U-turn.
Kate Dearden
Good morning to the shadow Secretary of State. I am sure he had a stiff drink after his performance at Prime Minister’s questions yesterday.
All pubs and live music venues that meet the definition set out in the guidance qualify for the support, and he will be able to see that clearly online. We will be working with local authorities to ensure that the definition includes establishments open to wide sections of local communities. I have already discussed valuations for pubs, how we take turnover into account and how we will work closely with the wider sector on valuations going forward. This is a Government who are working closely with the sector and are committed to listening. That is being a responsible Government, and we are doing the right thing.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
Of course, it is not just Bracknell, and one day those on the Labour Benches will understand that there are no workers’ rights if people have no work. Youth unemployment is up significantly. That is a tragedy that everybody should be ashamed of, and it is going up on Labour’s watch. Small businesses, which provide so many jobs, are very worried about the administrative burden of trade union access. We are talking about the very smallest businesses—pubs, restaurants, garden centres and small catering businesses. They are the backbone of our communities. As the Minister tries to implement the Employment Rights Act, will she consider lifting the threshold for the trade union access agreements to a headcount of 250—that is recognised elsewhere in law as a threshold—which would protect our very smallest businesses from that administrative burden?
Kate Dearden
To hear the Conservative party try to lecture us across the Dispatch Box on trade union engagement, industrial relations and how we operate our economy is very interesting. The hon. Gentleman knows that I am working really closely with businesses of all sizes—small and large—and with our trade unions and partners, because that is the right thing to do. The Employment Rights Act is a significant piece of legislation. We want to get it right, but we also want to fundamentally change how we do things in this country. That is the right thing to do, and we are taking the responsible action to do so. We recognise that there are lots of changes, which is why are working in a staged way over the next two years to implement them, and we are doing so in partnership with businesses and trade unions. We want to work together to deliver this. It represents significant change for 18 million people across the country, and businesses are vital in delivering it. That is why we are working together to do so.
Employment Rights Bill
Andrew Griffith ExcerptsMonday 15th December 2025
(5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Employment Rights Act 2025 View all Employment Rights Act 2025 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Commons Consideration of Lords Message as at 15 December 2025 - large print - (15 Dec 2025)
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
The concerns that we Conservatives have with the Bill have long been known, and I accept that we have debated them at length. I will not repeat them all today, because we are not here to debate the whole Bill, just the message sent to us from the other place.
There was a time when the Labour party would have cared about protecting jobs and those who wanted one. There was a time when Labour believed, as we do, in the dignity of work and what that meant for families and communities—a Christian socialism, if you like, rather than the state worship that seems to have replaced it. I cannot honestly think of a previous Government who would ever have passed this Bill—certainly not since the 1970s. The result, whether Labour likes it or not, is that day by day, week by week, month by month, people are losing their jobs.
This Christmas there will be 192,000 fewer people in private sector payrolled employment than last Christmas, and who knows what it will be like next Christmas. We have the worst ever graduate jobs market. Adzuna estimates that jobs for degree holders have fallen by 33%. Labour used to care about youth unemployment, but for those aged between 16 and 24 unemployment has now reached 15%, according to the Office for National Statistics. As has been the case every month so far under this Government, tomorrow morning we are likely to hear that the rate of unemployment is higher.
This Bill could have been on the statute book today, but for one simple reason: a gross betrayal of trust. The small group of business groups that Ministers invited in for tea and sandwiches took this Government at their word.
Antonia Bance
I wonder if the hon. Gentleman would like to tell the House which of these business groups he disagrees with and that he thinks we should not listen to today, because these are the groups telling us and peers in the other place that we should be voting for the Bill. Does he disagree with the British Chambers of Commerce or the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development? Does he disagree with the Confederation of British Industry, with the Federation of Small Businesses, with the Recruitment and Employment Confederation or with Small Business Britain?
Andrew Griffith
The hon. Lady would have been wise to contain her excitement, because I agree with all of those groups in their letter today, which the Minister selectively quoted; she did not quote them saying that they are not in favour of removing the cap. I have spoken to each and every organisation that was in the room, and they are crystal clear, with one group saying:
“That was not a concession discussed with us or agreed by us in the negotiations”.
I invite the Minister to intervene on me if she thinks that a word of what I say is wrong. She is misquoting, and it is misrepresenting those business groups that do not support the cap.
Why would any sane Government scrap the cap entirely? Indeed, this Government themselves did not for 13 and a half of the 14 months that we have been debating this Bill. It was not in the manifesto or the Bill or the impact assessment. It was not considered by the Regulatory Policy Committee, and it was never discussed in this House until Ministers threw it in at the last moment in a breach of trust of the business groups with which they negotiated.
Angela Rayner
I know where this came from—the new deal for working people—and so do businesses and the trade unions. As the Minister pointed out, there have been discussions, and they came to that conclusion. What is it about protecting people from unfair dismissal that the shadow Minister has a problem with?
Andrew Griffith
What is it about protecting people from unemployment—preventing young people from getting jobs—and from economic growth? The Government of which the right hon. Lady was once a member said that was their No. 1 priority and their obsession, but they have singularly failed to deliver it.
Conservative Members want to get Britain working again. We want jobs for those young people—we think it is a stain on our character that 15% of young people are unemployed—and all we get from Labour is union-paid representatives trying to put more people out of jobs and deny young people more opportunities.
Angela Rayner
I thank the shadow Minister for giving way again; he is being generous with his time. Why does he not have a problem with people being often in insecure, low-paid work without any contract that gives them regular hours? Does he realise how difficult that makes it for young people—any person—to have any security in their life? That was what he presided over in his 14 years of failure, and that is why Labour was elected on this manifesto promise.
Andrew Griffith
Our Government created 4 million new jobs. This Government have lost jobs every single month they have been in office.
The points that the right hon. Lady makes are not those we are debating. There is one issue in front of us, which is Labour’s desire to defend and remove a cap of £118,000. That has nothing to do with ordinary workers. What does it say about today’s modern Labour party that its focus, and the whole reason why we are back here and the compromise was not accepted, is its desire to remove a cap of £118,000, which will only ever benefit the better off?
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
Does the shadow Minister recall that in 1999 when the Blair Government increased the cap, they held a consultation beforehand, and that in 2015 when the coalition Government introduced a cap, they held a consultation beforehand? Why are this Government behaving differently?
Andrew Griffith
My hon. Friend makes an important point, which I hope somebody on the Labour Benches will address. We have seen no analysis and we have no idea of the cost of this measure. Not a single business—not a single person who employs people—has come out and endorsed the removal of the cap. It is beyond me, I am afraid.
Yet what is happening in our employment tribunals? On Friday, as I am sure the Minister knows, it was revealed that the delay and backlogs at the employment tribunal have reached their highest ever level. At the end of the most recent quarter, there were 515,000 open claims. Before anyone intervenes, let me say that I accept that much of that was inherited—[Interruption.] But before Labour Members laugh: the Government are making it worse. Merely since the Bill was introduced to this place, the claims backlog has increased by 65,000. They are doing nothing to address the backlog, which is going up every single month—I do not think they have even discussed it with their calamity of a Justice Secretary —and we know that they have carried out no impact assessment. It is extraordinary. The scrapping of the compensation cap for the highest paid will simply stoke the fire.
I make it a rule not to learn lessons in how to run an economy from France, but even France introduced a cap on tribunal payments to tackle unemployment and encourage labour market dynamism. Perhaps we should take advice from closer to home: today the Health Secretary seems to be no fan at all of giving more powers to unaccountable unions.
Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)
Will the shadow Minister give way?
Laurence Turner
The debate is on the Employment Rights Bill, although I struggle to follow the line of logic in the hon. Member’s speech. He said that the effect of the change would be to benefit the wealthiest employees, but chief executive officers and other senior executives rarely seek recourse to employment tribunals, for a number of reasons. Can he name a single CEO or equivalent who has pursued a case for an employment tribunal?
Andrew Griffith
Well no, I cannot, because there is a cap—the very cap that the hon. Member’s party is seeking to remove. I try not to be uncharitable about the complete absence of business experience in the Cabinet, but that level of question, together with that impact, is just embarrassing.
The Minister in her remarks—there was not much of an argument; it was really just a critique—blamed peers in the other place for the Government’s own failures. Notwithstanding how peers are doing the constitutional job we ask them to do, Lyndon B. Johnson said that the first rule of politics is to learn how to count. The Government lost the vote on its unemployment Bill last week by 24 votes, but 65 of their own peers did not want anything to do with the Bill—they did not turn up and did not vote. During the passage of the Bill, one Labour peer has even resigned his peerage and joined the exodus of wealth creators to the United Arab Emirates because of what he sees. The Resolution Foundation and the Tony Blair Institute have both criticised the Bill.
By removing that £118,000 compensation cap, the Government are not protecting the vulnerable. If that is what they wish to do, there are other ways to do that, but ordinary workers will never benefit from that. It is a genuinely mad world; I do not understand why we are having this debate.
This time last week, the Liberal Democrats agreed with me on this. The hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) has been campaigning for the boss of South East Water to be fired, but without a cap his payout could be millions. Is that really what they want? What changed, other than the appearance of five new Liberal Democrat peers?
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Graham Stuart
I am extremely grateful. My hon. Friend is setting out a powerful case. We are puzzled, because a system designed for ordinary workers that has a sensible cap is now being opened up to the very CEOs who, as has been highlighted, would not have previously used it. We have a Labour party in hock to the unions yet strangely proposing a measure that was not included their manifesto which can only help the rich. What happened to the Labour party?
Andrew Griffith
I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. I will leave that hanging there and hope that Labour Members will address it.
In conclusion, I ask the Government at this eleventh hour to pull back from the brink and introduce a financial cap so that we can get this business done this week. They have no consent from business, and they sought no support for it in their manifesto. I have talked about youth unemployment and the level of redundancies. We Conservatives will get Britain working again. We will end the attacks on employers and repeal the job-killing measures in the Bill. For the sake of businesses, for the sake of the backlog and for the sake of Britain, the Government should accept the Lords amendment and drop their motion.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Griffith Excerpts(5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
Five Lib Dem Lords a-leaping. That is all it took for the Liberal Democrat party to throw every British business under the bus and expose them to the unimaginable liability of infinite tribunal payouts. It is hard to think of a more anti-growth, anti-job measure. On Monday, the Liberal Democrat spokesman was against, on Wednesday they were for and goodness knows where they will be tomorrow. Does the Minister agree that British business would have an entirely fair case to dismiss the lot of them?
Chris Bryant
The hon. Member seems to have lost the plot, frankly. Let me just point something out to him: what was average growth under the Tories? It was 1.5%. What is it under Labour? It is 2.2%. Which is higher? It is higher under Labour than the Tories. Average employment in the UK under the Tories was 73.8%. What is it under Labour? 75%. Which is higher? It is higher under Labour. Average inflation under the Tories was 3.2%. Under Labour, it is 1.8%—better off under us. I will just say on rights that we do not create a healthy and wealthy society if we ignore the rights of workers.
Andrew Griffith
Lyndon B Johnson said the first rule of politics is to learn how to count. The Government lost the vote in the House of Lords last night on the unemployment Bill because 144 of their own peers did not want anything to do with that Bill. One Labour peer has already resigned to join the exodus to Dubai. Tony Blair would never have brought forward this Bill because he understood the importance of growth. Will the Minister now accept the sensible compromise passed in the other place last night and today give British employers and workers the certainty they need for business to grow?
Chris Bryant
I can count; the hon. Member cannot. Let me remind him: growth under the Tories was 1.5%, and growth under Labour is 2.2%. Which is higher? It is higher under Labour, isn’t it? Why did we lose the vote last night? Because of 25 Tory hereditary peers. Why on earth would that be? Why do we think they might not be willing to support Labour? Look, it is absolutely clear that it is business that builds economic growth, but we cannot create a wealthy nation if we do not tackle poverty, and we cannot tackle poverty unless we grow the economy—just like a prosperous business cannot be built on the backs of the workers, and that is what we will never do.
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
Labour’s steel strategy was originally promised in spring 2025, but yesterday we learned from a written ministerial statement, snuck out without Ministers coming to the House, that the strategy will now not be published in 2025 at all—it is more likely to be spring 2026. We have no steel strategy after 18 months, there is no sight of the US tariff agreement on steel that the Prime Minister claimed to have on 8 May, and no deal with the Chinese owners of British Steel. Will the Minister give the sector the Christmas present that it wants and publish the steel strategy?
Chris Bryant
It is a bit of a cheek, isn’t it, the Conservatives coming and talking about a steel strategy when they had absolutely no strategy and did not even choose to go and visit some of the steelworks that we are talking about. There will be a steel strategy. The Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Chris McDonald) has been having discussions with trade unions and industry, both downstream and the producers, and we will be producing a comprehensive steel strategy very soon. I am happy to deal with the tariff issues if there is a little time later.
Seasonal Work
Andrew Griffith Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair.
We have heard from Members from across the House who understand a fundamental truth: that the hospitality sector is the cornerstone not only of our economy but of our society. It is a great strength of our parliamentary system that we all represent unique districts that are all, in one way or another, replete with high streets and hospitality businesses—pubs, restaurants and hotels—which we all wish to support. Members on both sides of the House have observed the importance of binding our communities together, giving people a warm place to stay—a refuge from loneliness—and keeping our high streets vibrant. Those are places where life happens.
As we have also heard, hospitality performs a vital and arguably unique role in providing the next generation with that vital first step on the career ladder. I imagine that many of us had our very first experience of the world of work—that priceless exposure that helps us become world-ready—in retail or hospitality. I certainly did, and we have heard many other such examples. The sector does that precisely because it is a feature, not a bug, that it provides flexible seasonal work that allows young people to earn their first wage, combined with other responsibilities or opportunities, and, in so doing, to learn the important dignity of labour.
As we have heard from my right hon. and hon. Friends, pubs, hotels and restaurants in particular are hurting as a direct result of the Chancellor’s choices, not just in last year’s Budget but once again in this year’s Budget, which was delivered from the Dispatch Box just a few weeks ago. More than a dozen venues from my South Downs constituency have contacted me in the last 24 hours alone, having heard about this debate. Ruth and Martin at the Cricketers in Duncton described to me how their rates are going up by £4,500 to £5,000 a year—that is money that they do not have. The Fox Goes Free in Charlton has been a public house, continuously serving the community, for over 400 years. Like every pub, it makes a huge contribution. Its business rates bill will increase by more than £13,000 next year. The House should bear that in mind when Labour Members talk about how they have introduced permanently lower business rates. That is a laughable idea. I have heard similar stories—and worse—from the Murrell Arms in Eastergate, the Half Moon Inn in Northchapel, the Labouring Man in Coldwaltham and the Onslow Arms in Loxwood.
Graham Stuart
Tom, the landlord of the Kings Head in Hedon, heard on Budget day that business rates would be cut for businesses like his. Instead, the rateable value of that pub, which provides such an important service to the people of Hedon and the surrounding villages, has gone from £9,000 to £32,000.
Andrew Griffith
My right hon. Friend is exactly right. I would not want to incur wrath by accusing anybody of misleading the House, but that is exactly the same story that I have heard from the Bridge Inn in Amberley, the Star and Garter in East Dean, the Bricklayers Arms in Midhurst and the Black Horse Inn in Byworth. That surely cannot be a coincidence; these cannot be isolated examples of those “permanently lower” business rates—
Andrew Griffith
Of course I will give way. I look forward to hearing about how one should understand that statement about the “permanently lower” business rates that this Government have introduced, of which we cannot seem to find an example.
Anna Dixon
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to come and walk with me down the high street in Saltaire, where property valuations mean that many businesses will have lower business rates in absolute terms. Has he explained to his local pubs that that property revaluation has been hanging around for many years, but his Tory Government did nothing to implement it? That is the main reason why some of his pubs might be experiencing increases—it is due to property valuation, not business rates.
Andrew Griffith
I hear the hon. Lady’s point, and I am glad she has found some examples—I note that neither in her intervention nor in her earlier remarks did she go so far as naming any of them, and I will happily take another intervention if she would like to do so. I have named many examples. The revaluation exercise on pubs is not some long-delayed exercise; it is a routine, frequent timeframe that the Valuation Office Agency goes through. This is not something that has been pent up for many years; it is just the process of revaluation.
When it comes to the rubber hitting the road of how much business rates are being levied on pubs, and how much cash will leave those stretched businesses that are struggling with all the different costs, what matters is the net effect of revaluation, this Government’s removal of the retail, hospitality and leisure relief that the Conservative Government put in, and of course the ongoing rate multiplier.
Every pub and hotel that I have spoken to in my rural constituency bears out precisely the figures from UKHospitality and the British Beer and Pub Association —we have heard about that many times today, and I know that they ran drop-ins earlier today for Members across the House. Tom Richardson at the Three Moles in Selham explained to me how the turnover basis of assessing rateable values has combined with the cost headwinds that this Government have amplified—I will be so kind as to imply that they did not all happen from 1 July 2024. Nevertheless, the choices that the Government have made, in particular the change in the national insurance rates and the changes to thresholds on national insurance, have enormously pushed up the cost of employment. On top of that, businesses are still waiting for the promised reduction in energy prices, whether for electricity or heating oil, because those prices have more than doubled in some cases.
Tottington Manor Hotel in Henfield has to find nearly £50,000 extra due to the changes that this Government have made to employment costs. It is no surprise—we heard this again and again from colleagues this afternoon—that pub and hotel owners are at the end of their tether. Nobody should want to preside over such a series of choices. One landlord told me that they have not been able to draw a wage from their pub for the last six months. Another told me how she was working seven days a week, 16 or 17 hours a day, just trying to keep the pub open.
As we heard from many colleagues, the cost of hiring staff has become so prohibitive that owners are having to cut back. They are not able to hire, support or sustain staff, and they are taking more and more upon themselves, stretching their working day and taking on more tasks, creating one of the doom loops in which, it is sad to say, this Chancellor so specialises.
We heard that from many colleagues who made contributions this afternoon, including my hon. Friend and near neighbour the Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson), who spoke about the challenges on the island, particularly with seasonal work, and about how young people are hurting and how that is costing all of us in the country.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) said that this Government are awash with policies, plans and visions, but words butter no parsnips and they do not provide the jobs that we need—least of all the Employment Rights Bill, which, as it comes down the line, will really hurt and disincentivise family businesses, with which the sector is replete.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) talked, as did others, about the cumulative effect of measures—tax rises, national insurance increases, higher energy costs and more red tape—rather than there being one single axe falling on the heads of businesses. We should listen to small enterprises when they say that it feels like the Government are not on their side. It is no surprise that pub after pub, hostelry after hostelry, is erecting a sign on the door saying, “No Labour MPs here”. I remember that the Minister said that he had not seen one of those signs, so I trust that people in his constituency will take that as a personal challenge to ensure that one such sign is brought to his attention in the very near future.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) said that this Government are doing that most terrible of things: preventing young people from getting on the job ladder through their first chance of work. The Government weigh down precisely the sorts of businesses that do such a good job of providing those opportunities, and that is difficult.
My constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths), talked about the tourism economy. To all the challenges and headwinds that have come about because of the Chancellor’s choices, we can add the bed tax, which will increase the cost for anyone holidaying in the UK. It will deter people from enjoying the wonderful vistas of Bognor Regis, Littlehampton or the South Downs, and simply encourage people to go to other countries on holiday, following in the wake of the many young people mentioned by hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth, who are leaving this country, such is the dearth of opportunity.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) talked about the degree to which the hospitality and pub sector is already over-taxed, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) made the really important point that all the burdens of family businesses fall back on families.
I am afraid to say that we are seeing nothing less than a full-frontal attack on seasonal work, and we see that no more so than in the unemployment Bill that was before the House this week. Like King Canute, this Government are legislating to outlaw seasonality and the rhythms of the tides. If a seaside café hires a student to wait on outside tables in the glorious sunshine, Labour wants the café to be forced to offer the student the same hours once the shutters come down in the autumn. It will mean the demise of strawberries and cream sellers in Wimbledon fortnight.
The Government’s plans will even mean the death of Father Christmases and assistant elf helpers in shopping centres across the nation, because there is little demand for a Christmas elf in January, February or March. This is bureaucratic madness, yet Ministers press on, deaf to the cries of those who would most benefit from the choice—[Interruption.] Labour Members do not like what I am saying, but they do not have an answer. They should know by now that you do not protect workers by bankrupting employers; you do not support our high streets, communities, pubs and restaurants by taxing them into submission.
We Conservatives understand business. Unlike those in the current Cabinet, many of us have worked in businesses and enterprises ourselves. We stand with the risk takers in this country who create wealth, not the bureaucrats who seek to destroy it. That is why our motion supports seasonal, flexible and part-time working. We will take 250,000 high street businesses and pubs out of business rates entirely, paid for by the welfare reforms that the Government does not have the backbone to push through, and we will repeal all of the job-destroying measures in Labour’s unemployment Bill.
We back the engines of growth in our economy—the providers of jobs. This Government seek to push them to the wall. I commend this motion to the House.
Employment Rights Bill
Andrew Griffith ExcerptsMonday 8th December 2025
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Employment Rights Act 2025 View all Employment Rights Act 2025 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Commons Consideration of Lords Message as at 8 December 2025 - large print - (8 Dec 2025)
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Colleagues should note that the debate will have to conclude by 7.55 pm, so only a couple of Back-Bench Members will get in. A speaking limit of eight minutes will apply to Back Benchers. I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
Two weeks ago, the Chancellor stood at the Dispatch Box and delivered a Budget that contained not a single measure to support growth. Today, in moving the motion to disagree, the Minister has signed the warrant for a war on jobs. She is at the Dispatch Box representing the Government, but everyone knows that it is the former Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), who is calling the shots. We discovered this morning that Labour Together is already auditioning for the Prime Minister’s replacement. Perhaps the Minister has an outside chance at the job, but my money is probably more on the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne. Perhaps the Labour party could have its first female Prime Minister just before the Conservatives have our fourth. Given all that job insecurity, it is no wonder that Labour Members seem so keen on employment rights.
This is not a Bill for employment rights; it is a charter for a jobless generation. Thanks to measures in the Bill, thousands of young people will struggle for opportunities because the rungs of the ladder have been sawn off. Since Labour entered office, 144,000 payrolled jobs have been wiped out. Manufacturing, the oil and gas sector, construction and hospitality are all unable to make ends meet due to high energy and employment costs. The unemployment rate has been higher every month of this Government. Half the jobs lost belong to the under-25s.
Andrew Griffith
I will happily give way if the hon. Member wants to talk about the jobs lost in his own constituency.
David Pinto-Duschinsky
Will the hon. Member acknowledge that employment under this Labour Government is higher than it was under the last Conservative Government, with an average of 75%? Will he therefore apologise for his comments?
Andrew Griffith
Under the Conservative Government, we improved the number of people in work and unemployment fell to a record level. Since the current Government have taken office, unemployment has been higher every single month. Half the jobs lost belong to the under-25s. Does anyone want to talk about the youth unemployment rate under this Government? It is now 15%, and the number of young people not in education, employment or training has gone up by 25,000 on their watch—before the impact of this disastrous Bill.
The Government claim to support workers, but their first legislative achievement will be to make more young people unemployed. How could any Member of the House possibly support that? So, who is the Bill really for? As I have said before, the clue is in the text: it mentions maternity rights just three times, but it mentions the word “union”—no Labour Members have declared their interests—478 times. It includes: the union right to roam; scrapping the turnout threshold on union strike ballots; more paid time off for union reps; and automatic deductions of union political funds. It also orders businesses to hand out Government-written pro-union propaganda.
Strikes will become far more common. But don’t take do not take my word for it—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State is chuntering from a sedentary position, but perhaps he would like to listen to his colleague the Health Secretary, who just last week said that he had “had it” with the unions and that
“the last thing patients need this winter is strike action”.
Back in July, the Health Secretary was citing the silent majority of doctors who did not vote for strike action. My colleagues in the other place merely request that a strike ballot requires a turnout of 50% of the workforce. By rejecting Lords amendment 62, the Minister is allowing minorities to shut down hospitals, educational establishments and public transport while the silent majority of members are ignored.
We should take a moment to welcome the fact that the Government have U-turned on day one rights. After months of relentless campaigning, and a complete clear-out of departmental Ministers, the Government finally listened. There is no shame in that—I told them it was unworkable, and business told them it was unworkable—it is just a shame that it took so long. Just hours before the U-turn, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman was telling journalists that the Government would overturn all attempts to water down day one rights. A Prime Minister without a backbone who does not know his own mind has caused a year of uncertainty for employers and workers alike.
Mr Connor Rand (Altrincham and Sale West) (Lab)
On that point, will the hon. Member give way?
Mr Rand
The shadow Secretary of State speaks of uncertainty for workers. I gently point out that Conservative Ministers promised more than 20 times to deliver an employment Bill, and having broken their promise to working people, perhaps he would like to talk a bit more about that and about the constituents in insecure work he speaks to, for whom his Government did nothing, while this Government act.
Andrew Griffith
I say respectfully to the hon. Member that if acting is to raise unemployment, to cost young people their jobs, to ensure that employers are not hiring and to have the worst graduate market for a generation, then bring that on. If that is what he came here to do, I would be surprised at that.